All long-running serials experience creative ups and downs, but perhaps no series' merits have been more passionately debated — and called into question — than Showtime's Dexter. There's no denying the show's powerful early seasons...or is there? After last year's, uh, controversial series finale, the whole series was… »6/30/14 1:00pm 6/30/14 1:00pm

When Women Who Kill premiered on Showtime in 2013, Amy Schumer was not the massive comedic presence she is today. It was just weeks before Comedy Central premiered the first season of Inside Amy Schumer, but already the buzz surrounding the sketch series was absurd. Two seasons, 20 episodes and dozens of profoundly… »6/27/14 1:00pm 6/27/14 1:00pm

So you probably want to talk about Louie. To process, as it were. We'll get to that, but in the meantime a prescription for dealing with your loss of the show: Live at the Beacon Theater. Louis C.K. has been a comedy game-changer this season, but sometimes it's important to look back as we look forward. »6/20/14 1:00pm 6/20/14 1:00pm

The seminal 2006 documentary Jesus Camp is a look into the religious education of children in the born-again Christian community during the mid 2000s, but it's also an important portrayal of a fearful and confusing time for the nation. Watching the documentary in 2014, it comes across almost like a dramatic… »6/18/14 1:00pm 6/18/14 1:00pm

If creating products for mass consumption sounds simple or artless, think again. Gary Hustwit's 2009 feature documentary, Objectified, tackles the design of everyday objects, from furniture to iPhones to cars, and asks probing questions about everything from their fabrication to the validity of their very existence. »6/13/14 1:00pm 6/13/14 1:00pm

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a foodist's wet dream. The documentary features more than an hour of breathtaking shots of raw fish, sliced and prepared so meticulously that it makes all the sushi you've ever consumed seem like worthless mush. It's truly glorious. It is also a document of one man's peerless skill and… »6/06/14 1:00pm 6/06/14 1:00pm

At the heart of the 2014 Oscar-nominated documentary Cutie and the Boxer is not just the story of a strained and complicated marriage between two artists, but a depiction of the difficulties faced by anyone trying to eke out a living from a career in art, and the exhausting pressures of trying to achieve success. »6/04/14 1:00pm 6/04/14 1:00pm

It's no surprise BBC's Sherlock has taken off the way it has: the mysteries are delectable, the setting simultaneously sleek and cozy, and the bromance simmering. The show's viewers have gone from fans to having super-fans, to mega-fans, over the course of its run, that is, until the series two finale when things,… »6/04/14 1:00pm 6/04/14 1:00pm

Pretty Little Liarsis the best show your 14-year old cousin is watching that you should be, too. With its mix of Twin Peaks-style suspense and peak Gossip Girl-level drama, it's easily one of the most compelling, marathon-worthy shows making you stay up way past your bedtime (even though you don't have one, because… »5/16/14 1:00pm 5/16/14 1:00pm

Maybe you've heard of Bronies, a worldwide community of grown-up (and teenage) men who get super into the updated, vaguely insectoid incarnation of the '80s cartoon My Little Pony. The Bronies come together at conferences, where they're able to bro out over topics like "cutie marks," discuss "The Elements of Harmony"… »5/02/14 1:00pm 5/02/14 1:00pm

The West Wing was very much of its time. It premiered at the tail end of the Clinton administration, and reached its cultural zenith at the end of a decade of peacetime for America. What happened in the interim — and even more-so in the early seasons of the show — was a much more rose-tinted version of American… »4/28/14 12:00pm 4/28/14 12:00pm

"You can bend chains and you can bend bars, but you can't bend people." That's the thesis statement for Strongman, the moving and intimate cinema verité documentary about Stanley "Stanless Steel" Pleskun, the self-proclaimed "Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal." »4/25/14 1:30pm 4/25/14 1:30pm

When a certain detective drama became a water cooler hit earlier this year, it didn't take long before people noticed its glaring lack of three-dimensional women. The girl-in-a-bodybag trope has been around for as long as detective genre itself, but it's only recently that viewers have begun to object to the cliché. »4/23/14 1:00pm 4/23/14 1:00pm

In this year's NCAA championships, University of Kentucky's starting lineup drew comparisons to The Fab Five, the players featured in the ESPN documentary about the 1991 University of Michigan starting lineup, and it wasn't just because it was also largely made up of freshman. »4/21/14 1:00pm 4/21/14 1:00pm

In this year's Oscar winner for Best Documentary, we watch Darlene Love recount the first time she heard, "He's Sure the Boy I Love," a song that she recorded after signing with Phil Spector as a solo artist, on the radio. "I'm tootling down the street and I hear the DJ on the radio and he said, 'the new song by The… »4/17/14 1:00pm 4/17/14 1:00pm

The first time I heard musician and Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna sing, "We want revolution…girl-style noooowwww," I was 16 years old, living deep in the suburbs listening to the Bikini Kill cassette a friend's younger sister had dubbed for me. The year was 1993, and the sound of that band cracked my world wide… »4/16/14 1:00pm 4/16/14 1:00pm

He wears a suit like Cary Grant, can make a room of grown men tear up over a slide projector, and he does not want your "Zou Bisou Bisou." He's Don Draper, the adman everyone loves to hate and hates to love. (Caution: there are a couple of spoilers in this post.) »4/14/14 1:00pm 4/14/14 1:00pm